This application claims the benefit of priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(f) of the earlier application for New Zealand Plant Breeders Rights, Application Number SHM227 filed Jul. 20, 2007.
The present invention relates to a new and distinct cultivar of Chinese or saucer magnolia plant grown as an ornamental for use in the landscape as a specimen tree. The new cultivar is known botanically as Magnolia soulangeana×lilliflora and will be referred to hereinafter by the cultivar name ‘GENIE’.
‘GENIE’ is the product of a formal breeding program at the breeder's nursery in Waitara, New Zealand. The purpose of the breeding program is to develop smaller growing magnolias which are disease resistant and cover a range of flower colors.
‘GENIE’ is a seedling selection arising from the inventor's controlled cross-pollination of Magnolia×‘Sweet Valentine’ (unpatented) as the male parent and an unnamed seedling of a cross between Magnolia soulangeana ‘Sweet Simplicity’ (unpatented) and Magnolia lilliflora ‘Nigra’ (unpatented). The cross to make ‘GENIE’ was done in 1998. ‘GENIE’ was selected in 2002 when it flowered 2 years from seed. ‘GENIE’ was chosen for its rich red color that is consistent from the start of the flowering season and until the end of the flowering season. The breeding program process which produced ‘GENIE’ proceeded as follows:
First in 1989, the female parent of ‘GENIE’ was raised by crossing Magnolia soulangeana ‘Sweet Simplicity’ as the male parent and Magnolia ‘Nigra’ as the female parent. In 1998, pollen from Magnolia ‘Sweet Valentine’ (male parent of ‘GENIE’) was applied to receptive stigmas of the newly raised unnamed female parent before its flower opened fully. The resulting seed was collected in the fall and then cleaned and stratified for at least 90 days at 2–4 degrees Celsius. Seed was ready to sow approximately 1 whole year from pollination. Seed was sown in a greenhouse and grown for one season. One year old seedlings were planted in the ground at final spacings and grown until they flowered which occurred from 2 years to 10 years from sowing.
The closest varieties known to the inventor are the parent varieties. ‘GENIE’ is intermediate between the parents. The seed parent is a small clumping bush with elongated flowers like Magnolia lilliflora ‘Nigra’. The flowers exhibit typical wavy appearance of cultivars of M. lilliflora types. ‘GENIE’ may also be compared with the variety ‘Black Tulip’ (unpatented). Whereas ‘Black Tulip’ is a strong growing magnolia which develops a tree fairly quickly, has stems which are 1–2 cm thick in the current season's growth, and produces globular flowers, ‘GENIE’ is an upright large bush or small tree with slender branches up to 1 cm thick and occasionally 2 cm thick on very strong watershoot growths. ‘GENIE’ grows 2 or 3 times as high as it does wide. Flowers are globular to cup and saucer form and show some waviness in the tepals, but less so than typical forms of Magnolia lilliflora. 
The inventor first asexually propagated ‘GENIE’ in 2002 at the inventor's nursery in Waitara, New Zealand by chip budding (grafting) onto seedling understocks of Magnolia soulangeana or Magnolia kobus. Under careful observation, the inventor has determined that ‘GENIE’ is stable, uniform, and reproduces true to type in successive generations of asexual propagation.